Bede, St Cuthbert and the science of miracles Article Published Version Lawrence-Mathers, A. (2019) Bede, St Cuthbert and the science of miracles. Reading Medieval Studies, XLV. pp. 3-28. ISSN 0950-3129 (ISBN 9780704915824) Available at http://centaur.reading.ac.uk/88716/ It is advisable to refer to the publisher’s version if you intend to cite from the work. See Guidance on citing . Publisher: University of Reading All outputs in CentAUR are protected by Intellectual Property Rights law, including copyright law. Copyright and IPR is retained by the creators or other copyright holders. Terms and conditions for use of this material are defined in the End User Agreement . www.reading.ac.uk/centaur CentAUR Central Archive at the University of Reading Reading’s research outputs online Bede, St Cuthbert and the Science of Miracles Anne Lawrence-Mathers University of Reading Whilst Bede’s Prose Life of St Cuthbert has been several times edited and translated, and has been discussed together with his historical writings, his earlier, metrical, version of the Life has received considerably less attention. Bede worked on his Lives of Cuthbert during the periods when he was also writing his fundamental works on computus and natural philosophy. A central argument of this article is that Bede’s work on these ‘scientific’ subjects had a significant impact on his ideas concerning sanctity and the miraculous, and that this gave him a unique approach as a hagiographer. Bede’s Metrical Life of St Cuthbert is accepted as an early work, although it is not precisely dated. Michael Lapidge’s analysis of the manuscript evidence has shown that Bede in fact produced both an early version, c705, and a later revision whose date is unclear.1 The early version was necessarily composed after the appearance of the Anonymous Life of St Cuthbert, written at Lindisfarne soon after Cuthbert’s death, since Bede’s poem follows the prose account quite closely.2 The first oddity about Bede’s version, however, is that it nowhere mentions the existence of the prose original. This is puzzling, not only because it was Bede’s usual practice to give the sources of his information, but also because naming the witnesses to the miracles of the saints was already established as important within the growing genre of hagiography. The simplest explanation is perhaps that Bede expected that readers of his poem would already know the prose text on which it was based. As has been pointed out before there was precedent for creating a verse work as a complement to a prose treatment of the same subject. Lapidge has demonstrated Bede’s use of Arator’s sixth-century works on Sts Peter and Paul as a model.3 However, only St Martin of Tours had previously been the subject of Reading Medieval Studies, 45 (2019): 2 Anne Lawrence-Mathers both a prose and a verse handling of his life and miracles; and this, together with the facts that the Anonymous Life of St Cuthbert was the first life of an Anglo-Saxon saint to be produced, and one of the earliest hagiographies to be composed in Anglo-Saxon England, suggests that Cuthbert was being placed speedily and with pomp amongst the ranks of the established saints. That Bede felt a personal link to St Cuthbert is shown in his letter to the priest, John, to whom he sent a copy of the revised version of his poem.4 This letter was used in most surviving manuscripts of the Metrical Life as a preface to the work, since the poem does not have one of the usual type. The identity of John has never been established, but the letter shows that he was personally known to Bede, and was about to undertake a journey to ‘the gate of the blessed Apostles’. It appears that Bede and John had talked about Cuthbert and his miraculous powers; and Bede mentions that he himself has been granted the healing of his tongue whilst singing about the saintly bishop’s miracles.5 Whether the singing here is literal, or whether Bede is referring to the time during which he was working on his poem, is unclear; but what is more important is the fact that Bede feels a real, and even emotional, devotion to Cuthbert. This personal experience is mentioned in the context of a statement that Bede is collecting accounts of other recent miracles, and that he already hopes to write another work, in order to record the ongoing deeds of Cuthbert. Bede’s personal devotion to Cuthbert thus seems clear, as does his determination to record and to promulgate the miracles of the ‘local hero’ who is also a great, new addition to the pantheon of saints. However, none of this entirely explains Bede’s omission of any mention of his main source, nor his apparent failure to inform Bishop Eadfrith and the Lindisfarne community (who were the possessors of Cuthbert’s relics and responsible for the production of the Anonymous Life) of his enterprise. The evidence for this omission comes from the Prologue to Bede’s later Prose Life of St Cuthbert, which is dedicated to ‘the holy and most blessed lord and father, Bishop Eadfrith, and to all of the congregation of brothers who serve Christ on the island of Lindisfarne’.6 This is a prologue of the established type, setting out the credentials of the work and explaining its origin; but it is one with a slight twist. Bede places heavy emphasis on the role of Eadfrith and his monks, noting that they have commissioned the preface as well as his book itself. Bede, St Cuthbert and the Science of Miracles 3 Their direct involvement with the work is detailed, with Bede stating that he has ‘presumed’ neither to record anything about Cuthbert nor to issue his work for copying without subjecting it to their scrutiny. He says that he has taken great care to collect the facts about Cuthbert ‘with the help of those who knew him’, and has given the names of key witnesses. Moreover, he showed his notes to Herefrith, a priest who knew Cuthbert well, and to others with personal knowledge. Finally, the draft was read and discussed by a committee of experts for two days at Lindisfarne.7 The submission of his work to the authority of Lindisfarne is thus clear; and yet Bede writes as if his material were all the result of his own investigations, and once again makes no mention of the Anonymous Life.8 This ambiguity continues. On the one hand, while no alterations to Bede’s text were required, the new work is issued under the authority of the bishop and community of Lindisfarne. On the other, Bede nevertheless establishes his status as author by recording that, whilst he submitted his work to the Lindisfarne committee, and would have changed it if necessary, he refused to add ‘many other things’ about Cuthbert which those at the Lindisfarne meeting wanted to be mentioned. His reason was that it would be ‘hardly fitting or proper’ to insert new material at this stage into a work which had been so fully thought out and perfected (deliberato ac perfecto). The work was thus passed and approved for dissemination and copying, under the joint auspices of Bede, Eadfrith, and the meeting at Lindisfarne, but with Bede established as author. It is after all this has been set out, and after his graceful request for the prayers of the Lindisfarne community, that Bede mentions his earlier, poetic version of Cuthbert’s life. Bede writes as if Eadfrith were unaware of the Metrical Life, and says that it was composed at the request of ‘our brethren’ (presumably those of Wearmouth and Jarrow). It is shorter than the new, approved version, and in heroic verse, but handles the material in the same order as the new work. Having opened the Prologue with a humble address to Bishop Eadfrith and to Lindisfarne, Bede concludes with an apparently personal statement: ‘In the preface of that work I promised that I would write more fully at another time about the life and miracles [of Cuthbert]; and in this present little work I am attempting to keep the promise I made’.9 4 Anne Lawrence-Mathers It is clear that no definite answer can be given to the questions of why Bede chose to write a Metrical Life of Cuthbert, why he did not mention his use of the Anonymous Life in either of his own versions, and whether his first attempt had, or needed, the approval of Lindisfarne. The prologue to the Prose Life already seems to regard the letter to John as a preface to the Metrical Life, justifying its later treatment. This is slightly surprising since the letter itself demonstrates that Bede has already sent his work outside of Jarrow, even though the Prologue to the Prose Life suggests that it was composed only for Bede’s brethren and was unknown at Lindisfarne. The final puzzle is that Bede does mention the Anonymous Life, and his use of it, in the introduction to his Ecclesiastical History of the English People. Here he says that his writings on Cuthbert, both in the History and in his ‘little book’ on the saint, were based partly on what was written by the monks of Lindisfarne (which he trusted absolutely) and partly on the results of his own careful enquiries.10 What does emerge clearly from all this, however, is the strength of Bede’s own devotion to Cuthbert. The fact that the writing of the Metrical Life, which is something of a tour de force as a poetic composition, appears as largely Bede’s own act of dedication to Cuthbert, is a key point for this paper.